


Should Willow have Done that Spell in Becoming?

by shadowkat67



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Essays, F/M, Literary References & Allusions, Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-12
Updated: 2009-08-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22412761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67
Relationships: Angel/Buffy Summers





	Should Willow have Done that Spell in Becoming?

During my my own re-watch of the series along with the reading of the comics, I'm wondering about that resouling spell in Becoming that Willow did. Online, I've seen numerous discussions about whether Xander was right to lie to Buffy about the spell, but I've never seen anyone discuss whether Willow was right to do it. Whether Buffy was right to ask her to. And whether Giles was right to endorse it.

Should Willow have ever attempted to re-ensoul Angel? Should she have done it twice? Let alone once? And was Xander right about Willow not doing the spell re-ensouling him?

If Willow hadn't done it - Angelus would either still be in hell or have come back in S3 to torment Buffy until she staked him. Also Willow would not have had the power she got, or been able to do the spells she did to help her friends. On the other hand, she also would not have gotten addicted to magic. I don't know if she and Tara would have ended up together. She may have gotten killed by someone in S3. Also Buffy would not have been able to join with her friends to defeat Adam. There is of course no evidence this is true. If Willow hadn't done it - Buffy may have stayed in Sunnydale or come back sooner. Faith may have not turned against them. Spike may have gotten staked at Buffy's hands. Riley and Buffy may have succeeded as a couple. Any number of different events may have happened. Hard to know.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

But all of this is irrelevant because we do not know what would have happened had she not done it. It's like asking yourself what would have happened if you didn't walk into a coffee house on a given day. So let's put that aside for the time being.

Should Willow have done it from a tactical perspective and an ethical one?

**The Spell**

The spell - according to Jenny Calendar's Uncle - who knew the spell, it was a black vengeance curse, one of the worst imaginable. Not about justice. But vengeance. Angel was meant to suffer, always. To never feel a moment of happiness or relief from the pain. The moment he does, he becomes Angelus.

The spell was created for the sole purpose of vengeance by the oldest of their clan to curse Angelus for raping and murdering their favored daughter, a young girl about Buffy's age who was chaste. [Surprise/Innocence S2] It was also untranslated, very old, and lost years ago. The spell is over 100 years old.

Jenny Calendar had to hunt the spell down, translate it, and hunt the ingredients. Also Jenny, who was a technowitch and a gypsey, did not know if she would be able to perform it. Plus, Jenny is about ten to fifteen years older than Willow and trained, she is not a novice and practices the religion. Not only that, it is her heritage. Jenny inherited it from her family as did Tara. We've also been told in Passion that the spell is difficult to do and the translation not necessarily accurate. What Jenny is attempting is according to her uncle, Jenny, and the shop-keeper, dangerous and challenging. Jenny also keeps what she is doing from Giles.

**Willow and the Spell**

When Willow gets the translation, she has not really been practicing magic at all. Just a few things here and there that she's found on websites and on Jenny's computer, but nothing has worked. She's decided that she can do it. Even though it is a dangerous spell. Giles is even a little skeptical. But they are desperate.

Note - Willow is not magical up to this point. She is just wickedly bright. She has no power that we know of. And she has not studied other languages. Nor does she know the history of the spell or its purpose.

So Willow does the spell, while Buffy distracts Angelus. Not realizing that Angelus has sent his cronies to grab Giles and kill Buffy's friends. Willow's focus on the spell and her friends focus on Willow, leaves them open to attack. Kendra is on guard-duty, but Kendra gave her weapon, Mr. Pointy to Buffy. It's an arrogant ploy. And Willow is knocked unconscious, Xander breaks his arm, Kendra is killed, and Giles is kidnapped.

After Willow comes to, Buffy does not ask for her to do the spell again. She tells Xander that that was her mistake. She should never have done it. Xander agrees. But Willow tells Xander that she is resolved. She's doing that spell and orders OZ and Cordelia to help her.

Willow has suffered a severe head injury. She was unconscious for quite some time and hospitalized. She is weak and fragile. Also possibly on medication. A bit foggy. The spell she is planning on trying is an old, complicated, gypsey spell that has been translated from another language and part of it, she has to speak in that language. It is also a vengeance spell. Does not matter what your motivation - the intent of the spell is vengeance. That was what it was created for. But Willow insists to Xander, OZ and Cordy - despite their protests to the contrary - that she should do it anyway. I don't know if Giles would have or could have stopped her.

 **Angel and the Spell**  
Angelus has made it clear he doesn't want to have a soul. He had one and is happy that it is gone. If he gets re-ensouled it is against his will. This is not something he would choose.

Re-ensouling Angelus is actually not that different than giving him a chip in his head, although the soul possibly makes him less likely to hurt people. The ethical guandry here has previously been examined in other works of literature - notably Joseph Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ , Alfred Bester's _Demolished Man_ , and Anthony Burgess' _Clockwork Orange_. _Heart of Darkness_ is about how we, with the best of intentions, fight evil with evil and what results. _Demolished Man_ is about how a hardened criminal is rehabilitated by giving him the equivalent of a conscience and wiping his old personality. And _Clockwork Orange_ is about behavior modification.

It is guandry. Do you kill the demon or rehabilitate it?

On the other hand, re-ensouling Angelus does give him a choice on whether he should be evil or not. The demon skewed evil. But the man, may not. Even if it is a curse, it does provide him with the choice to rise above it. Also there's nothing about the curse that says he can't choose to ignore the pain and just kill. As Dru tells Spike regarding the chip, _all wires in the brain, they lie, you can be a bad dog if you want to_ \- the same goes with a soul. And as Lilah demonstrates...souls don't keep you from doing bad things, or the Mayor states to Spike: _a soul is slipperier than a greased eel, why do you think I sold mine?_ All a soul does is give you a choice. BUT, does it give you a choice if you are cursed with it? If the moment you feel happiness or bliss, it is removed? The metaphor may be power - as Angelus, Angel had a lot of power, he was considered the worst thing - and people followed him. He created monsters. Did as he pleased. Took what he wanted. Yet, did he really have any power? In Destiny - he seems to tell Spike they have none, that nothing is theirs. He enjoyed the ability to torture and maime things without caring. To glory in it. As Angel - he is powerless. Doesn't even have the ability to choose to have a soul. It's foisted on him. He is in a prison of sorts.

Would he choose a soul? Probably not, although we have no way of knowing...if he might have - had it been a chip instead of soul Willow placed inside him. I'm guessing not, because to Angelus the soul restricts him, forces him to do things, is an authority over him. Is his father inside his head never to go away. The Fruedian super-ego. Remember Angelus killed his father. With a soul, his father won't leave.

**The Consequences of the Spell**

Willow's choice to do it, at the time she did, may well have doomed her. She opened a door that she could not close. When the spell happens, it is not Willow's voice that we hear, but someone else's and something goes through Willow, her eyes turn pitch black, she acts possessed. Then when it is gone, she wilts against OZ, her voice her own again. Willow's voice under the influence of the spell is the same as it is in Bargaining and in Two to Go and Grave. The entity she released, gave her power to do the spell, but at what cost? In re-souling Angel, did Willow lose herself?

The spell also caused a rift to happen. Angel had to be sent to hell either way. There was no avoiding that. Even if Buffy had known about the spell, she still would have sent Angel to hell. She couldn't stop him from grabbing the sword out of Acathla. Her knowledge of the spell being done would not have changed the fact that she had to fight minions while Spike was fighting Dru. What caused the rift in the friendships, and it is ironic, was in a way Willow's spell. Buffy leaves because she killed Angel not Angelus. And, her friends knew about it. Not only did they know, they did the spell without telling her. That betrayal was probably more than she could stomach. It's a double whammy. That's why not telling her was a tactical error on Xander's part - he inadvertently caused the rift in their friendship. Buffy is less open with Xander and Willow after Becoming, partly due to that spell and the lie.

What happens to Willow after the spell? When Buffy returns from LA and her own personal hell, she finds out that Willow has been doing a lot of magic. Willow literally turned out all the electricity on her block. Willow is radiating power. Anya senses it. As does Amy. The power though is not Willow's - she got it from the spell, when she opened that door. Willow's path was more or less charted at that moment, when she chose to re-ensoul Angel from her hospital bed.

Is Angel better off ensouled? Is the world he lives in? Hard to say. I think the viewers are better off, because it's a better story. And I'm glad they did it that way. But from an omniscient, objective stance - I don't know.

I'm also not sure any more if we were supposed to think Willow doing that spell was a good thing? It certainly hasn't turned out to necessarily be a good thing. And the show is first and foremost a horror series. The authorial intent can be argued in more than one way.

Is Willow better off? Is Buffy?

**Xander and the Spell - Was Xander right about the spell?**

Was Xander right? I think based on what Xander knew at the time and his knowledge of vampires, he was as justified in his point of view. He had no real reason to trust Angel or vampires in general. _School Hard_ \- Angel literally offers Xander to Spike as bait, without telling Xander. And makes it clear that he doesn't really care that much about Xander one way or the other. Also, when Xander killed Jesse, he tried to reason with Jesse, tried to find the human inside and found out it wasn't there. Xander's view of vampires we can safely say is based on Jesse. His best friend who almost killed him, twice, as a vampire. [Harvest S1] Also, from Xander's pov - Willow is in no shape to be doing a spell and unlikely to succeed. Buffy failed last time in killing Angelus because she was stalling due to the spell. And it put everyone in jeopardy, as Buffy herself tells Xander. Xander has not seen Buffy fight Angelus successfully. He believes she's up against some pretty nasty odds. Why weaken her further by telling her that Angel could come back? Xander, who thinks with his gut and emotion, doesn't understand Buffy's rational reasoning. They come at things differently. Xander makes his decision as most of us tend to do, based on what Xander would do if he were Buffy. Not based on what Buffy would do. (Note Selfless - where Xander does with Anya exactly what he may have feared Buffy would do in Becoming.) We all make the mistake of thinking that others should do what we would do in a situation. We look at their actions or reactions based on our own.

**Willow's Motivations**

Willow was also thinking with her emotions. She'd romanticized the Angel/Buffy romance.  
And wanted everything to end well. When confronted with what happened in Selfless - she states, well it all worked out well didn't it? But did it? Willow also tends to be selective in how she remembers events. And from Willow's perspective doing the spell would mean Buffy and Angel ride off into the sunset. Maybe they are together? She states at the end of Becoming. I know it worked. I felt something go through me. She is thrilled. In _Dead Mans' Party_ up to and including _Faith Hope and Trick_ \- Willow is bragging about what she did. She is literally begging Buffy to acknowledge it. Much the same way she is in Afterlife and the episodes following it. She wants to be congratulated for what she accomplished. Giles, for the record, both times, shuts her down. He chides her. States she is playing with fire. Opening doors that she may not be able to close. But he's also uncertain whether Willow did the right thing in both cases.

**Conclusion?**

I don't think the writers answer the question. I think they leave it open-ended. To be debated if you will. It makes sense that the characters did what they did. Actually I can't see them doing anything else. Becoming was rather well plotted in regards to its characters and its characters actions were organic to them. No OOC moments here. But from moral, ethical and tactical stance - were the characters correct in what they did? Were there other options? And what were the consequences? These questions aren't really that different than the ones we ask of own political and military leaders when they invade Iraq or do embargo negotiations with North Korea or the setting up of or demolishing of Guaitanmo Bay. Are we second-guessing actions that we have limited information regarding? Are the leaders right in how they went about it? It's hard to know. But I think the questions need to be asked all the same - even if there are no satisfactory answers forthcoming.


End file.
